Finished Object: Rainbow Stripe Sweater

So one of the last blog posts before I took a long break was about this rainbow stripe sweater I was knitting for my daughter. That post never got published. It was still marked “draft” on my blog.

I started this sweater back in February of 2017 according to my Ravelry project page.

Project Details

Pattern: Playdate by TinCanKnits

Yarn: Marigold Jen (grey), and several indie dyers for the stripes.

Mods: Adjusted pattern for gauge. Different button band/collar than pattern.

The stripes went fast. And then it got put aside and sleeves never got put on. I found it after we moved houses in a project bag awaiting sleeves. Just 2 “small” sleeves and a button band.

I dug it out and one weekend did one sleeve. Then it got shoved in a project bag for another year or more. Finally the pandemic this year has created a lot of time at home and I dug out a few old projects to finish. This was one of them.

I was pleasantly surprised to find it only needed a 2nd sleeve and a button band.

The big question though, was would it still fit the intended recipient? She had grown quite a bit over the last 3ish years this sweater had been languishing. Thankfully due to some crazy gauge issues and some forethought on adding length to the body and sleeves, it still fit. And bonus, had quite a bit of room for her to grow some more.

The finishing on this sweater kills me. I decided to hide the ends of all the stripes in the button band. So I knit the band, purled a row and knit some more. Then sewed it down to enclose the ends in a nice button band sandwich! Then I didn’t have a million ends to weave and trim.

She picked some lovely sparkly buttons at Joann’s that are the worst for actually buttoning a sweater, so I opted to use them as decoration and add snaps for easy opening and closing. However, I’m not impressed with my snap sewing skills. Maybe I should have used pressed snaps and did it before I sewed the button band down? Anyone do anything like this before?

In the end she is quite smitten with this sweater and it is a favorite of hers to wear around when she is chilly. On the plus side with school being held in our back room for the time being it also means less stress in sending a precious hand knit sweater to school.

Until next time…

-AMU